US embassy cable - 05BANGKOK5271

UNCLAS BANGKOK 005271 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR EAP/BCLTV AND EB 
USTR FOR WEISEL AND COEN 
TREASURY FOR OASIA 
COMMERCE FOR 4430/EAP/MAC/KSA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON, ETRD, EFIN, TH, US-Thai FTA 
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR'S FTA MEETING WITH DEPUTY PM 
 
1. (SBU) On August 16, Ambassador Boyce called on Deputy 
Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Somkid Jatusripitak to 
express USG concerns about the slow pace of FTA negotiations, 
explain that an FTA with the U.S. must be a single 
undertaking (the Thai-Japan FTA model is not an option for 
us), the necessity of structuring the FTA on a positive list 
basis, and the express requirement in Trade Promotion 
Authority for an FTA labor chapter. 
 
2. (SBU) Somkid replied that now that the Thai-Japan FTA 
talks "are finished", he would devote his attention to RTG 
talks with the U.S. and had already scheduled a meeting of 
his team for next week to discuss ways of accelerating the 
pace of negotiations. He did not directly respond to the 
Ambassador's specific points, but pointed out that he and his 
staff present in the room had all spent a lot of time in the 
U.S.: "you know us and we know you; both of us need to 
understand each other."  Regarding the negative vs. positive 
list issue, Somkid intimated that perhaps some sort of 
compromise formula could be found. 
 
3. (SBU) Comment. For the first time Somkid indicated that he 
would fully engage in our FTA "now that I have time," and 
insisted it was important to his government to complete these 
negotiations. We suspect that his active participation in the 
ultimately successful (from the RTG viewpoint) talks with 
Japan may have encouraged him to play a more active role. 
Others have told us that one of the reason's he was moved 
from the Finance Ministry in the recent government reshuffle 
was to make him more directly responsible for FTA matters. We 
believe that we should quietly work with him on issues that 
prove too difficult for the Thai negotiators and test his 
stated inclination to engage and solve problems. 
BOYCE